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Today, Google announced that it had acquired Quest Visual, the company behind the popular Word Lens app which offers camera-based translation.

With the acquisition of Quest Visual, Google is likely to utilize its technology into Google translate in the future. The Word Lens app developed by the company translates a text captured through the device camera into a language of your choice and is available on iOS, Android and Google Glass.

Google’s translate app which currently has only voice recognition feature for input will also include visual input method. Quest Visual allows offline use of the app as “language packs” are offered that are stored on the device. The Word Lens app has scope for development as the app cannot recognize handwriting or stylized fonts.The details of the acquisition was not disclosed by Google.

Quest Visual is offering the language packs free for all platforms for a limited time during its transition to Google. The language packs was the source of revenue for the company which includes languages like French, Spanish, German, Russian etc. Google Glass had recently received an update for Word lens with new features. Google wants to utilize the technology into a number of services offered by the company including Google translate.

“As a thank you to everybody who supported us on our journey, we’ve made both the app and the language packs free to download for a limited time,” read a statement.

About Bhanu Jamwal

Living in Aldine, TX, he writes about Mac, iOS, Android and IT Hardware. Apart from writing on The Next Digit, he is also an expert in providing valuable seminars on IT Peripherals and IT Security. All posts by Bhanu